


Caught

by RubyLipsStarryEyes



Series: In a Manor of Speaking [15]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adult Hermione Granger, Chance Meetings, F/M, First Dates, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Funny, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Humor, Interrupted, Lucius Malfoy & Severus Snape Friendship, M/M, Multi, POV Hermione Granger, Romantic Fluff, Second Chances, Severus Snape Lives, Unexpected Visitors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:53:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29591706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyLipsStarryEyes/pseuds/RubyLipsStarryEyes
Summary: Prompt: 10/20 Caught in the rain
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Lucius Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape, Hermione Granger/Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape
Series: In a Manor of Speaking [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950238
Comments: 3
Kudos: 50





	Caught

Hermione pulled her scarf more tightly around her, cursing the cold London wind. It looked as if it was going to rain, but then, it nearly always did. She would have much rather been home with a cuppa and a book, but she was running out of time to finish her shopping, and she knew Diagon Alley was going to be a crowded disaster if she put it off any longer. 

Regardless, she bit down her complaints, and stepped through the floo to the Leaky Cauldron.

She was nearly done, coming out of Flourish and Blotts with an armful of packages when she was caught in a knot of people, and cameras flashed around her. It took her a moment to unfreeze, to try to push past the reporters swarming like so many insects. Her wand was trapped between her bags and her chest, and she grit her teeth as she was jostled this way and that. She almost panicked, but a voice she knew and had never been so happy to hear cut through the crowd.    
  


“Disperse yourselves.  _ Now.”  _   


  
It had been years since she’d heard Severus Snape take control of a full room of rowdy kids, but he hadn’t lost his edge. The reporters scattered like cockroaches under a light, and Hermione sighed in relief when the last one disaperated, leaving her with her former professor. The street was still busy, but now that it wasn’t crawling with the media, it no longer felt oppressive. Standing beside him on the broken cobblestones, she couldn’t find the words to thank her unexpected savior.    


  
“Thank you,” she told him with honest sincerity as her heart began to calm from it’s breakneck pace.    
  


“My pleasure,” he replied, a note of amusement in his voice accompanied with a sharply arched eyebrow. “Vermin, the lot of them.”    


  
“Cockroaches, I thought.” 

“Mmm,” he hummed as he appeared to muse over her comment. “Yes, those too.” The corner of his mouth twitched, and Hermione looked sharply away, hiding her own smile with a curtain of her hair that fell over one shoulder. 

“Thank you again, but if you’ll excuse…” She trailed off as the first few drops of rain hit her face, and she peered up at the clouds. 

“That is generally where the rain falls from, yes.” 

Hermione blinked at the jab, said with significantly less venom than she would have expected, looking up to find what might be described as a smile playing at his lips. A shocked giggle escaped her, and she nearly dropped everything she was holding trying to cover her mouth. It earned her a rather impressive eye roll, considering he managed to not just roll his eyes but catch the parcel that toppled off the top of her stack. 

He held up the wrapped book, and arched an eyebrow. Do you need assistance, Hermione?”

Heat flooded her cheeks and washed down her neck; her name sounded impossibly sophisticated from his lips, and she suddenly wanted nothing more than to hear her name said like that again. The disdain she’d come to expect in her school years was gone, replaced by a gentleness that had her reeling. Who was this Severus Snape that didn’t use his razor sharp wit to cut her down? 

His eyes, like black pools of ink, bore into her own. Again his lips twitched and he held the book up a bit higher. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

She gasped, breaking their eye contact and feeling the heat drain from her face and settle in her stomach like ice. 

“Would you come for a drink?” It wasn’t an order, but a gentle request, so at odds with her expectations for the man that she forgot herself and looked back into his eyes. 

She did want to go, if only to maybe understand what had changed. She had expected vitriolic hatred. She hadn’t thought he’d planned to live past that night in the shrieking shack, and yet the times she’d seen him since, he seemed… Livelier. Happier, even. 

His lips curved upwards again, and she cocked her head, examining him carefully. The skies decided that moment was time for them to release a torrent of rain, and Snape raised his wand, casting an umbrella charm without breaking eye contact. He stepped closer, and Hermione swore she could feel the heat of his body through her own heavy cloak and the stack of packages. 

“Well?” 

“Just one,” she conceded, and he nodded, a glint of approval in his dark eyes. 

“Have you ever been to Tre e Viverna?” 

Hermione hesitated. The exclusive pub was named for their infamous escape from Gringott’s, but Hermione had avoided it, given it’s swanky reputation. If she remembered correctly, Draco Malfoy was known to frequent the establishment, and that was enough to keep her far away. “It’s not my typical style, no.” 

Severus motioned for her to move forward, carefully keeping the charm up to keep her from getting drenched by the downpour. “Are you sure about that?” 

The pub was only a few doors down, and the door swung open as they approached. Hermione’s breath caught as his hand brushed over her back, a jolt passing through her skin even though her thick cloak and robes. 

The pub’s lighting was dim, and circular booths that offered near complete privacy lined the room, a polished oak bar extending through the center. It was quiet for a pub, a low murmur of conversations ebbing and flowing like the roar of waves on a beach. Despite it’s reputation, it seemed… Well… Exactly what Hermione liked in a pub. 

Her face must’ve shown her surprise, because Snape chuckled, a low sound that trickled down her spine, making gooseflesh erupt over her entire body. “No solid gold table tops I’m afraid. Lucius was rather put out about it as well.” 

Heat surged across her face again, but Severus was already striding forward, catching the eye of the bartender. The woman’s black v neck showed off a brightly colored owl tattoo across her shoulder, and one that looked like a patronus covering the inside of her other forearm. Her dark hair was long, disappearing beneath the edge of the polished bar top, and she sported a distinctly unimpressed expression that didn’t seem to phase Severus. 

“Randi. Will you have Miss Granger’s parcels sent to her home, and then I’ll have my usual. Hermione?” He turned back, and Hermione swallowed hard. 

“Wine? Pinot Grigio?”    


  
The barmaid nodded, and the packages flew from her arms and deposited themselves in a neat pile at the end of the bar. She followed Severus to a table in the corner that afforded a view of the door and the length of the bar. He stood until she took her place, and then sat directly across from her. She undid the clasp of her cloak with magic, rather than trying to fight it with shaking fingers and expose how nervous she was to be in close proximity to her former professor. He likewise shed his cloak, revealing his signature severe black attire. Hermione averted her eyes from his hands as he folded them over his wand on the tabletop. 

“It appears I was wrong,” she said lightly, trying to fight down the urge to babble like an idiot. 

“My my, words I never thought I’d hear from the Brightest Witch of her Age.” Still, no venom accompanied the barb, and Hermione snorted. 

“You don’t believe that rubbish.” 

“Don’t I?” He cocked his head, the challenge clear. 

“You were the only one to never give me even a word of praise, no matter what I did.” 

“You didn’t need it from me, if you had it from everyone else. But it made you push yourself, didn’t it?” He smirked. “Otherwise you would have grown complacent.” 

Hermione bit her lip, mulling over his words. “I don’t know about that.”    


  
“No?”    
  


The bartender hovered two glasses over to their table, the white wine in front of Hermione and a lowball glass with a golden liquid over ice and a sprig of rosemary gracing the top. 

Hermione glanced back to thank Randi, but she’d already moved on to another table across the way, and was chatting to a table full of women. The red headed woman with blood-red lips she recognized as one of the Auror department’s healers, a brunette she was fairly sure owned the bakery down the street that had done Charlie and Millie’s wedding cake last year (much to Molly’s chagrin), and across from them both was a barrister by the name of Kirsty Wright that Hermione hoped she never got on the wrong side of. All of them had reputations nearly as formidable as her own and Severus’, and it made her wonder why she’d avoided the establishment for so long. 

She glanced back as Severus plucked the herb from the glass, and dunked it in the liquid, holding it in place with one long finger as he took a sip. Between the graceful lines of his hands, and his thin yet perfectly shaped lips, Hermione had to avert her eyes back to the table of women across the way before her face traitorously flushed again, and she was caught staring. 

“I think that despite my shortcomings as a teacher, you were not one of them. You did not need my validation to be among the most brilliant minds I ever taught. You simply were.” 

Hermione’s eyes snapped back to him, and she just blinked at him, lips parted.  _ Had she just heard him correctly?  _

“Now Draco, on the other hand…” He raised his voice slightly. “Never learned his lesson with me. Are you quite finished eavesdropping?” 

Hermione looked around again, and her stomach sank uncomfortably. Draco saunted up to the table, smirking. He leaned against the wall of the booth behind Severus, and crossed his arms, eying Hermione warily. 

“Granger gets brilliant and I get put on the spot. That’s hardly fair, Severus.”    
  


Severus rolled his eyes, and Hermione kept her mouth clamped tightly shut.    


  
“If I was truly putting you on the spot, I’d be asking why you’re here instead of off chasing--”    


  
“Father asked for me, if you must know,” Draco interrupted, and Severus smirked. 

“Oh I’m aware. I was there when he sent the owl.” 

Draco snorted. “Of course you were. Care to fill me in on why he needs me at,” he checked his watch dramatically. “Not even five on a Saturday night?” 

Hermione cringed further when a silky voice came from behind her.    


  
“If you’d responded before three, you would already be finished with me, Draco. Now leave Severus to his date and come. I need your approval for the changes Ms Squires intends to make to the manor. Good evening, Severus. Miss Granger.”    


  
Severus raised his glass to the elder Malfoy, even as the younger scowled at him. “Gemma can do whatever she’d like. And this couldn’t be done during business hours because…?” 

“ _ Draco, _ ” Lucius warned sharply, and Hermione gripped her wand slightly tighter in her lap. 

Draco rolled his eyes and straightened his robes as he pushed away from the partition he leaned against. “Have a pleasant evening, Severus. Granger.” He turned to the bar and flagged down the bartender with a casual wave of his hand. “Randi darling, you’re looking marvelous, as usual.”

She drew closer, smiling deviously as Lucius joined his son at the bar. “What naughty, depraved things did I do to get both of you here at once?” She winked, and Hermione nearly choked on her wine. She pressed her hand over her mouth and glanced at the table full of women. They were watching with openly amused expressions, and the healer— Hermione thought her name was Kenna— nudged the baker with a laugh. Kirsty, the barrister, raised a hand to wave at a woman who’d just come in and was shaking raindrops from her cloak. Gemma Squires, the most sought after interior designer in the  _ country.  _

Hermione cleared her throat. “This place just isn’t what I expected.” 

Randi evidently overheard because she peaked around Lucius’ shoulder, and raised her voice slightly. “Oh we’re lots of fun around here. Sev has  _ loads  _ of stories.” She winked lasciviously, and Hermione had to concentrate to keep her mouth from hanging open.  _ She called him  _ Sev? _ What in Merlin’s name…  _ The table full of women laughed, the brunette calling out something at the bartender in a different language that sounded a bit like Spanish, but Hermione wasn’t sure. 

Lucius clicked his tongue and Randi returned his attention to him, while Draco greeted Gemma, and the four drifted toward an empty table at the other end of the long bar. 

Severus waited until they were out of earshot, and then lifted his eyes from his glass to hers. “Apologies for those two. Without Narcissa to wrangle them, they’re rather unruly. And Randi never helps matters.”   


  
Hermione nodded mutely, and Severus studied her face closely. His lips twerked up in that almost-smile again. “I do have plenty of stories, though. Such as the time she decided to call me  _ Daddy  _ in class her seventh year.” 

Hermione’s mouth did drop open that time, and her cheeks flushed what she could only imagine was a red to rival the color of healer’s lipstick across the way. Severus continued as though he was discussing the weather. “I’ve never managed to find out if it was for my benefit or that old toad’s, but whichever the case, it kept Umbridge out of my classroom for nearly a month and I let her off without detention for it. She seemed rather put out about it though.” 

Hermione let out an embarrassed giggle, and quickly covered her mouth to stifle it, but Severus’ half smile just turned upward even further. It was the closest thing to a smile Hermione had ever seen on him, and she was entranced. 

She wasn’t sure how she ended up here, in a posh pub across from a smiling Severus Snape, but it was a circumstance she certainly wouldn’t mind being in again, she decided. Even if Draco and Lucius Malfoy were both eying her from down the bar. She chose to ignore them, choosing instead to give her full attention to the one that had caught it months ago. 

**Author's Note:**

> As per usual, same story, we'll get the whole thing laid out here eventually.... yada yada... something about something else... Chaos. Enjoy.


End file.
